Restoration of Emperor FJI monument.

Dear fellow citizens, dear guests.

I would like to welcome you all here at the small celebration of the unveiling of the monument to the penultimate emperor of Austria-Hungary, Francis Joseph I. Here in Světlá, I welcome the representatives of Pohleď od Světlá nad Sázavou, the representative of the Czech Crown Party, Mrs. Senator Vítková, the member of the South Moravian Region, Mr. Hrnčíř, the citizens and representatives of the surrounding municipalities, but above all our natives who came to see us in Světlá .

Today, August 13, 2017, we gathered here in Světlá pod lipima to jointly unveil the monument to Emperor Francis Joseph I. This event today is not a nostalgic effort to restore Austria-Hungary, but it is a tribute to the monarch who administered and I can say that fairly managed the territory of a large part of Europe, where many peoples and nationalities lived and live. And driving such an incoherent colossus is a very demanding and complex thing. We were recently convinced of this by the collapse of the world power, the Soviet Union, but also by the collapse of Yugoslavia and our own Czechoslovakia. It is a tribute to the man who led Austria-Hungary for an incredible 68 years. And it was a difficult time and very difficult to make decisions. The municipality had this monument restored after almost 100 years. Several reasons led the village council to restore the monument:

First - we value the work of our ancestors. This monument was built by our ancestors and surely unveiled in 1908 on the 60th anniversary of the reign of Emperor Francis Joseph I. A linden park was planted around this monument, which grows here to this day. I don't know and I didn't find out in how many municipalities the monument was erected at that time, but I would like to once again welcome the representative of the small village Pohleď u Světlá nad Sázavou. According to my information, the emperors planted a linden park in this village in 1908, but the monument with the bronze bust was only unveiled by the emperors in 2016 on the 100th anniversary of the death of Emperor Francis Joseph I.

Although this monument was dismantled and destroyed at the end of 1918 for quite understandable reasons, two basic fragments of the monument have survived to this day. Mr. Krchňák, a peasant from Svetel, from the descriptive number 1, built a part of the monument - a bust of the emperor - into the building of his barn. This fragment was known among the citizens of Světlá, and in 2014, during the "visit of the successor to the throne of Archduke František Ferdinand ďEste in Světlá before his departure for Sarajevo", the owner of property No. 1 allowed interested parties to view this walled fragment. The event had a great response among the citizens of Svetel and visitors from the surrounding villages, but above all, Mr. Lubomír Dvořák informed the representative of the village that he had the emperor's head at home and subsequently donated this fragment to the village. We also acquired this walled part of the monument from the Šlégls, the current owners of property No. 1. I would like to thank Lubomír Dvořák and the Šlegls for these fragments and Ladislav Šumbera, who expertly removed the walled-up part of the bust free of charge and subsequently also repaired this wall. The fact that the municipality now owned two basic fragments of the monument was the second reason for restoring the monument.

And the third reason is the attempt to partly change the Czech public's negative view of Emperor Francis Joseph I, who is primarily presented as a monarch who was an enemy of the Czech nation and who started the First World War. However, this view is greatly distorted, because in 1914 it was far from an absolutist rule of the emperor, but at that time the emperor had already been subject to the decisions of the Imperial Council for a long time. From my point of view, Gavrilo Princip, the assassin from Sarajevo, is responsible for starting the world war. A twenty-year-old young man, an anarchist, who wanted to change the world and shot the heir to the throne and his wife in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. If this tragic assassination had not happened, Archduke Francis Ferdinand ď Este would have taken over the government after Emperor Francis Joseph I, and world politics would have gone in other directions. Archduke Francis Ferdinand ďEste was a supporter of the federalization of Austria-Hungary, which the conservative emperor rejected.

Emperor Francis Joseph I was a very hard-working person, he got up at five in the morning, later even at four, and spent almost the whole day in his office sorting out various files, studying important documents and dealing with politicians. He was also very careful, punctual, but also conservative in his old age - he rejected inventions - he did not use, for example, the telephone, he did not take the elevator, he rarely drove a car.

In 1907, he helped push through the introduction of universal suffrage in the country. It is not known, for example, that he contributed a considerable amount to the construction of the National Theater in Prague or that he financially supported the traveler Emil Holub during his trip to Africa. And there would be plenty of events of this nature. These facts unknown to the public will certainly change the view of this monarch. A lot of information about the emperor can be found on the Internet, in Terezín Emperor Francis Joseph I has his own museum. There are certainly several municipalities in Bohemia, Moravia or Silesia that have a monument to Francis Joseph I.

My thanks also go to the restaurateur Mr. Allan Doupal from Šternberk, who restored the emperor's bust and made the entire monument here only on the basis of a well-preserved period photograph.

In Světlá, 13 August 2017

Ing. Jiří Cikánek, mayor of the village